[p.629] Cairo; we immediately got every thing ready, and when the
caravan was opposite the castle, at about twenty minutes distance, Hamd
and I hastily joined it. What became of the officer and his garrison, I
never heard. I bought of the Bedouins of the caravan a supply of water,
sufficient to last me to Cairo.
Although the passage of this desert is less dangerous than formerly, it
is impossible to protect it effectually, without establishing a small
body of horsemen or dromedaries at Adjeroud; and it is a discredit to
the government of Egypt, that this is not done. The well of Emshash
affords a seasonable supply of water to robbers, who lay in wait in the
rocky country of Montala, where one of them stationed on the top of a
hill gives notice of the approach of any enemy or object of plunder. The
castle was undoubtedly intended as a look-out post against the Arabs.
The French once had a garrison in it, and its walls have been repaired
by Mohammed Ali Pasha, but the interior is in a very ruinous state, and
few provisions are kept in the extensive store-houses within it.
On proceeding to Cairo, the caravan took, for the first stage from
Adjeroud, a route somewhat to the southward of that by which I had gone
to Sinai, and joined the latter at Dar el Hamra. Six hours and a half
from Adjeroud we passed Wady Khoeyfera [Arabic], the bed of a torrent,
with trees growing in it, a very little below the level of the
surrounding plain. Here I saw the ruins of a small stone reservoir, and
to a considerable distance round it, ruins of walls, and several wells,
some built with brick and others with stone. They appear to have been
surrounded by a wall, which now forms a circular enclosure of mounds
almost wholly covered with sands. The existence of these ruins, which I
do not remember to have seen mentioned by any traveller, confirms my
belief, that in the most ancient times regular stations